


he thinks he's innocent (he knows he's not)

by nonbinarily



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Character Development, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6538687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarily/pseuds/nonbinarily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they used to be best friends. now jasper can't see past his own bitterness to notice that monty is struggling with demons of his own. you don't walk away from killing hundreds of innocent people unchanged, or unscathed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he thinks he's innocent (he knows he's not)

**Author's Note:**

> i was pissed about monty getting sidelined by jasper's angst (and literally everything else) so i wrote this behind the scenes of monty's mind in the scene from s3e4 to indulge my great love of ~inner turmoil~ and yes I know he probably didn't think all that much between the dialogue but hey who cares about realistic time sequences as long as there are feelings to eat amiright?

_But we had no other choice._

That’s his mantra. That’s what Monty tells himself when his best friend crumbles and oh god, he’s standing in the rubble trying to slow the self-destruction, and every piece of debris is an accusation, and he knows why he did it, but he never thought that looking Jasper in the eye would be this hard, and it’s so fucking hard when all he sees there is a hollow loathing for life and everyone _(and him)_ , and it’s all he can do to fight off raging, clawing regret, but he manages—barely—because one of them has to hold it together, goddammit.

_But we had no other choice._

There’s a desperate belief behind those words, a need that requires something more than the reasoning he’s had faith in, the people he’s had faith in. Clarke? She left. She pulled the lever and she took her guilt with her when she walked away. She bears her responsibility, or so he tells himself. The alternative means there’s extra weight on his shoulders, and he’s not sure he can handle much more. Can he? Because if there was another choice, where does that put him? Waking in the middle of the night to the images of all those unmoving bodies, stacked one on another like in nightmares except this one is jarringly vivid and altogether real. 

_But we had no other choice._

Fuck. He keeps saying choice and you can’t make a choice without choosing. Clarke and Bellamy _chose_ to kill those people. And he? He _chose_ to give them the means to do it. At the time there was one clear way out, but looking back—something he tries like hell not to do—he sees flaws in the reasoning. He sees other windows of possibility, other paths they could have taken. Maybe one of them would have led to a happier ending, maybe not. But it’s time he accepted that the choice they took was not the only one. The choice they took was the just one that screamed survival.

> JASPER  
>  You hear that, Finn?  
>  He thinks he's innocent.  
>  None of us is innocent.

_None of us is innocent._

Maybe Maya had meant it as a consolation, maybe Jasper means it as an accusation. (God knows he’s heard too many of those.) Monty, though, finally sees it as the truth he’s been avoiding for the last three months. 

_But we had no other choice._

The truth is, everyone has a choice. He had a choice when he programmed the kill switch. He _made_ that choice and now he has to live with it. Regardless of whether he regrets it or not, it’s over. (Or as over as it can be, when reminders of the deaths he caused meet him at every turn, in Jasper’s biting comments and Clarke’s gaping absence and Bellamy, who hides his brokenness almost as well as Monty does.) What’s not over is the way Jasper keeps lashing out like it’s the only thing he knows how to do anymore. (Maybe it is. God, he hopes not.) But this… something has to change. Even if it means breaking the friendship that used to hold him together. Because as it is, Jasper is tearing both of them apart anyways.

> MONTY  
>  Float you! For 3 months, I've watched you torture yourself and everyone around you, mostly me, but I'm done being your punching bag. Either you pull yourself together and get on with your life, or you fall apart alone.

How long have they been best friends? Long enough that it hurts Monty to lay down this ultimatum. Long enough that he’s not even sure if he can carry it out. But then again, who is he kidding—in Jasper’s eyes, their friendship was over the moment Monty programmed the deaths of the Mount Weather people.

> MONTY  
>  I miss my best friend.

It’s funny because the cynical, sarcastic Jasper of the past three months would have made some asshole comment like, “Oh that’s right, you lost him when you became a mass murderer. Can’t blame him.” It would have hurt less if he’d snarked about it, because Monty’s gotten used to that. Every offhand remark stings, but he can handle it. (It helps when he remembers that in a way, too, he deserves it. Maybe a thousand papercuts over time can serve as some sort of penance for the lives he took.) This time, however, when Jasper responds, there’s no bitter joking. He’s dead serious, and the words slam into Monty’s chest, a confrontation.

> JASPER  
>  He died that day, too.

_Is that what you really believe?_ There’s so much more Monty could say. “You didn’t die that day, Jasper, you just hurt like hell, but it’s been three months and you won’t stop reopening old wounds.” There’s so much more Monty _wants_ to say. “Get a grip. If not for the sake of everyone who cares about you, then for yourself. _Please._ ” He’d say it all, but it wouldn’t make a difference. None of it can make a difference until Jasper finds a reason to move past his grief and actually start living again.

> JASPER  
>  You’re leaving?  
>  See you on the other side.

Though the words are meant to be cruel, Monty finds himself hoping they’re true. Hoping he and Jasper will see each other on the other side of… whatever this is. Hoping that somewhere, there _is_ another side. Because if there’s somewhere this all makes sense, and everything’s okay, then he can find a way to get there. Oh god, if only he could get there. He knows too well that you can’t keep the past in the past, no matter what side you cross into, and he knows that the deaths at Mt. Weather will follow him for years yet. But he’s against all odds, he’s accepted that. What he finds so harder to accept is that when he moves forward, this time, it means leaving his best friend behind.


End file.
